Google Updates Drive, Play Magazines, Play Music and Chrome

Today, Google went ahead and pushed about 4 new updates into the Play Store for various apps. Google Drive and Google Play Magazines got some interface changes and Play Music saw a new update along with the stable version of Chrome.

Chrome – Stable

The Chrome team behind Google Chrome for android announced Chrome 27 for the stable channel. This brings a ton of new features, that those of us using Chrome Beta have had for quite some time now.

Fullscreen on phones – Scroll down the page and the toolbar will disappear.

Simpler searching – Searching from the omnibox will keep your search query visible in the omnibox, making it easier to edit, and show more on your search result page.

Client-side certificate support – You can now access sites that require you to use a certificate and Chrome will allow you to select an installed certificate

Tab history on tablets – Long press the browser back button to view your tab history

And a ton of stability and performance fixes

Google Earth

Google Earth also got an update, hitting version 7.1.1 in the Play Store. It adds some new feautres like Maps Street View, improved Directions and more. Here’s the full changelog from Google Play

What’s in this version:

New in 7.1.1
* Google Maps Street View: With Street View, you can explore the world at street level.
* Improved directions/search: Updated directions let you can visualize transit, walk, bike and drive directions in 3D while update search result list will let you browse search results quickly.
* Improved interface: Easily browse and enable different layers through use of new left hand panel

Google Play Magazines

Google Play Magazines also got a completely new user interface. They brought in the cards interface like we’ve seen in Google Play, Play Music, and a few others. Here’s the complete changelog from Google Play:

v2.0.0
* Completely redone magazines library UI
* Bug fixes

Google Drive

Today, Google Drive also got a much needed update. It brings the new cards UI to the app, along with some other features like being able to download a copy of files to your local device. Here’s the full changelog.

What’s in this version:

– New grid view makes it easier to find your files
– New quick preview lets you view photos and other files from within the app
– Scan documents, receipts and letters for safe keeping in Drive; then search by contents once uploaded
– Download a copy of files to your local device (Honeycomb+)
– Spreadsheet editor now supports changing fonts, colors and cell alignment
– View properties of files from within the editors
– Bug fixes and visual improvements

Google Play Music

Play Music also got an update. But the changelog on Google Play seems to be for the All Access update that we got last Wednesday. But the version number on the changelog matches the current or new version. so it’s a bit confusing. The update actually came out yesterday and I updated to it and have been using it all day today and have not really noticed anything new. So sounds like it was a bug fix update.

But here is the changelog from Google Play

What’s in this version:

v5.0.1026J
* Brand new user interface for phone, tablet, and TV
* Support for All Access subscription service in the US
* Key All Access features: Explore section to discover new music, Radio with unlimited skips, Add albums to My Library, Share and subscribe to playlists
* New Listen Now page that makes it easy to find something to play
* Swipe to remove from playlist or queue
* Swipe to switch songs on the now playing screen or now playing bar
* Go to album or artist from any song